Teik Oh

Small Business Case Study in Business Planning

Jun 15 2021

One of the most frequently asked questions I get about business planning is:

“But I only have a small business – do I really need to prepare a business plan?”

My wholehearted answer is always “Yes, Yes and Yes!”

First, understand that any sized business without a plan is moving in the dark. There are no long-term goals, no real target. Any supposed goals you set for the year are actually parts of a giant to-do list because they are not coordinated toward a big picture that you need to work toward if you want to achieve your business dream.

Imagine going on a holiday without a plan, and just buying the first ticket that pops up. What would you pack? What currency would you bring? Where should you stay?

What do you want out of your holiday? If you wanted to go shopping but your unplanned ticket takes you to a remote beach resort, you’re not going to achieve your goals.

But just put the common sense of having a plan aside. People say to me, to justify their lack of a plan – “but it’s too hard, I’d rather just do it.”

Apart from “Do it? Do what exactly?” I show them how it’s not “too hard”, that it is a simple step-by-step process.

You just need the formula.

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Training Your Employees For Your Absence

Jun 08 2021

Unless you own and wish to continue to own a micro-business where you work on your own in your profession or trade, it is more than likely that as a small business owner you wish to expand and grow your business to the extent that you will be employing people as you grow.

Most of us who run and operate small businesses wish to grow in size – as our sales and profits grow, by necessity we need to scale and grow our workforce so that we can produce more, or meet more customers or provide more services. We are constrained by the number of productive hours we, or anyone we employ, can spend on producing goods or services. So we employ more people.

Some of the new people we employ may not be directly customer-facing. Indeed we may need more and more “back-room” hours from new people – keeping the books, managing the stores, manufacturing or working behind the scenes.

The question is, how do you introduce more and more people and continue to control and manage the business as more and more people do the things that you used to do?

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A 5 Day Marketing Challenge For You!

Jun 01 2021

If you are a small business owner and you are not marketing, or marketing effectively, then you cannot grow.

Sorry to be so blunt.

Perhaps you will grow to some extent because you have a group of loyal customers, or you have a great product. But at some stage, unless you market your business, you will hit a very uphill slope to grow any further. In the business life cycle, this is called the “plateau” stage, and small businesses that do not market themselves get to plateau a lot earlier than other mature businesses.

The crux of the matter is that even as you grow slowly now, you cannot meet your own expectations – that dream you had for your business when you started it.

The answer is, you have to market your business.

But it need not be a massive project or an expensive affair.

Marketing is all about understanding what your product does for your target market and then telling them in an appropriate way.

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The Right Way To Reduce Business Costs

May 25 2021

When I was learning how to be an auditor, one of my early mentors told me: “There’s the wrong way to do the wrong thing, the right way to do the wrong thing, the wrong way to do the right thing, and finally the right way to do the right thing. As an auditor, you’re always looking for the wrong ways as well as the wrong things!”

I had to think about that.

But he was right. You shouldn’t ever do the wrong thing, whatever way you try to do it.

It’s also equally wrong to try to do the right thing in the wrong way.

All this is a long way of saying that when times are tough and we try to cut costs in our business – which is the right thing to do – some of us go about doing it in the wrong way.

Let’s look at how to reduce the costs of running your business, in the right way.

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The Right People Make All The Difference

May 18 2021

Whether you’ve only started your small business or have been operating for a while, if you are growth-minded, at some stage you will be thinking about, if not already brought in employees to help you do the work and grow your business.

Sometimes, you strike it lucky and you find people who are the perfect fit.

They work hard, the way you want them to. They are good at whatever you hired them to do. They even get on with you and everyone else in the business, and they get on with the customers.

If you are in that boat, congratulations! All you have to do is make sure they are happy working in your business.

However, most small businesses go through some difficult periods finding the “right” employee or employees. If you’ve ever had the “right” people working for you, then you know that the right people make all the difference.

So, how do you get it right all the time?

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Increase your sales through a highly focused marketing plan!

SMART Marketing: In this book, the owners of a small business are led through the SMART Marketing 7 Step Process to produce a marketing plan targeted at their most desirable customers. Any business can use these principles and in 4 to 6 weeks implement a plan to get them through the door! Find out how...

The SMART Marketing Workbook: Companion to “SMART Marketing”, this workbook sets out the SMART Marketing process in 7 workshops for you and your staff to complete questionnaires and templates that at the end, form the marketing plan you need to sell your REAL product to your REAL customer! View now...

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